FUFISM, SEO and your social media marketing strategy: marketing

Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts

Thursday, January 07, 2016

Content marketing, the social media and SEO

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating, distributing and maintaining valuable, relevant, and consistent online content to attract and retain a clearly-defined target market audience — and, ultimately, to drive predictable, well managed end user reactions, through careful management of conversion funnels and associated calls to action statements, that resonate with your intended target market audience, in a manner that this marketing adds value to the SEO efforts, so that your intended target market audience finds your original online content in search

Most content marketing falls within the Off Page Search Engine Optimization space, and Social media marketing forms the bulk of these efforts

Off Page Search Engine Optimization or OPSEO is a powerful set of tools that allow search engines to improve their understanding of the context and semantics of your content through a variety of different techniques. The semantic linkages between the different subsets of online information and the various creators, distributors and consumers of information allows search engines to develop algorithms that interrogate ultra large sets of data and extract trust factors as well as networked connections between different digital entities with a focus on specific elements within any individual online content, and then match these specific elements with individual search queries in ways that make sense to the individual who initiated the search query.

Off Page Search Engine Optimization is a vital element within the search industry, which allows search engines to better understand the specific purpose, aims, objectives and intentions of all online content. Once the intentions and purpose of any online content is understood by a search engine then it has the ability to match that purpose and intent of your content to the purpose and intent of a search query.

IPSEO or In Page Search engine Optimisation is a very complex issue that allows for the application of many different tactics, and and a wide range of different criteria to be implemented within any single piece of online content, be it in a web site, a blog or any other online resource, with the primary aim to improve the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages) associated with that online content.

Nearly every item of IPSEO is reflected in the HTML code of a page, where some tactics remain in the <HEAD> section and others remain in the <BODY> section of a page. Many of these different sections are pre-coded as widgets that the web page / blog design team include with ease and little actual coding is needed by most online content creators these days.

Many web design packages these days allow for easy insertion of specially designed widgets that add a wide variety of specialist coding , such as the latest specialist mark up of SCHEMA for specific types of data.

Your IPSEO starts with product / service research, then flows through to target market research and associated topic and keyword research. Your copywriter takes care of the textual and visual layout of the page, while a host of other specialists each contribute in various ways to the hidden aspects of the in-page content, such as the meta data and EXIF data embedded in images, video or audio files, and the extra info added to hyperlinks which include things like the REL = AUTHOR and REL = PUBLISHER tags which are inserted into the code of the hyperlink in question.

Many other issues are hidden in scripts that perform specific tasks such as including interactive spreadsheets, forms and clickable buttons that add value to the viewer experience. these items all need to be understood by the OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) team so that they may be exploited during the social media and cross media marketing efforts of the rest of the marketing team.

These scripts and related coding issues need to be put together with your SEO in mind, where variable names and related filing and naming issues need to be adjusted or changed to reflect the keywords and topic selection processes that were conducted at the beginning of the SEO process. By using the selected keywords as variables within scripts and code, an added layer of SEO can be sneakily introduced, but this takes a deeper understanding of SEO and the implications of using file names, coding variables and related naming procedures to manage this. It also requires that those who are doing the coding attend marketing meetings where SEO and the integration of SEO into the bigger marketing picture is discussed.

These issues need to be brought to the attention of your social media marketing team so that the IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimization) issues which are in place, can be expanded on, within the Off Page Search Engine Optimization space, focusing on the social media, through careful and well managed use of the In Page Search Engine optimization tactics that have been implemented, by making use of the research data and related decisions, including but not limited to the following information

EXIF data for embedded

images
videos
audio files
text files

alt text and related image titles, image descriptions as well as other image related info
any specialized SCHEMA MARK UP along with notes on the implementation of this schema markup along with any research done to establish
all keyword and topic research notes along with decisions of what to exclude and what to include
all target market research notes, as well as decisions made by other marketing personnel based on this information.
the purpose, aims, objectives and intentions of the original online content which is being marketed in the social media.

All this information needs to accompany the marketing brief that the social media marketing team are issued, which should include a document discussing the purpose, aims, objectives and intent of the social media marketing campaign, showing how this content marketing effort will interact with the SEO process, and how its impact will be managed.

Content marketers thus need to be well informed of all the sneaky and devious tricks used within the in page search engine optimization process, so that they may make use of these elements, by specifically referring to them within their social media posts.

Here we are talking of things such as prices which may have been added to product information within the page by making use of SCHEMA MARK UP, so that the social media post uses the same format and actual in-page price including the specific currency used within the SCHEMA MARK UP these exact match textual issues will add real strong SEMANTIC TRUST FACTORS to your content, both within the social media platform as well as the original on;line content in your blog or web page.

It thus follows the content marketing within the social media space can be used to improve a host of different Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators in very powerful ways, provided that your marketing team work together and follow a #FUFISM based marketing strategy, where the power of the social media is understood and managed through careful use of selected keywords that appear in the <HEAD> section of your web page or blog post.

Many online marketers do not understand the semantic reach of the <HEAD> section of your web page or blog post, and this is because they have been hearing the rumors that these items have no value for a number of years and most marketing folks do not even know that the <HEAD> section of all online content exists.

the meta tag - page title
the meta tag page description
the meta tag keywords
other devious and sneaky stuff inserted in the <HEAD> section of your page by the web site or blog design team

The issues relating to the <HEAD> section of your web page or blog post are seldom discussed, but this is one of the main reasons that bloggers make use of their own custom domains instead of using the free services such as blogspot.com. Unfortunately there are many hidden costs involved in hosting your own domain, and having your blog on a sub domain or subweb within your primary web site.

having your own domain and hosting your own online content instead of using a free service has many strange and powerful advantages within the SEO industry, but these all come at a price. Out sourcing your hoisting is an issue that needs careful attention, and unless you are a very large business that has the necessary security staff who are able to perform the necessary network security functions, you should out source your web site hosting. this needs careful attention and you do need to discuss this with a number of different folks to get their views, and take a decision based on your needs and resources available

Having your own domain gives you many advantages within the SEO industry, and most of them are new trust factors where semantic trust is the most important issue. You also need to remember to link to deeper pages and specific blog posts, as well as specific ever green pages in both your blog and your web site. This is a vital part of content marketing, where you need to remember to perform cross platform marketing, where your would mention your Facebook post in a tweet, and your twitter profile in your Facebook posts. Performing this action in other social media platforms and mentioning your other social media profiles should be done at least once every two weeks, and if you have a busy blog or web site, your should consider doing this more often, even once a day.

If your blog or web site gets fewer than 1 000 visitors every day, then keep your cross platform posting to once or twice a month. Always remember to document all your social media posts, with a time line and other relevant data in a spreadsheet so that you can evaluate the impact of your social media posts on your SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) and your web site / blog traffic flow stats.

You should make a habit of keep records of all your content marketing efforts in a spread sheet, with time lines and other relaxant data . this will allow for better management and control of any traffic flow audits that you may perform.

Remember that Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach, and that this is not a stand alone strategy.

Content marketing is a subset of your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and those who tell you different need to explain very clearly how and why content marketing is excluded from the SEO stable.

Understanding what SEO is and how the different sections of your SEO strategy interact with each other is not an easy task. the three SEO sections are

IPSEO or In Page SEO
OPSEO or Off Page SEO
OLSEO or Off Line SEO

Online Content marketing allows you to integrate your IPSEO (In Page stuff) with your OPSEO (Off Page stuff) through your social media posts, where link building is the primary SEO feature, that binds your social media posts to the content that is being marketed with a hyperlink.

Off Line Content marketing allows you to introduce your selected keywords and related semantic terminology to your target market audience. Here we are talking of using TV, Radio, news papers, magazines, flyers, bill boards and other adverting or marketing to get your intended target market audience to talk about your product, service, company, web site, blog or other online content.

If done right, both your off line content marketing and your online content marketing will use your In Page Search Engine Optimization notes and data research conclusions to construct the required information flow patterns within your intended target market audience.

This should l result in your intended target market audience using a search engine to locate more information about your business, using the keywords and semantically linked words, within their search query. This use of your selected keywords and semantically related linked terminology will result in better SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages.

#IPSEO #OPSEO #OLSEO #FUFISM #CONTENTMARKETING #SEO

Thursday, July 23, 2015

What is the purpose of your web site?

The purpose of web site explained

From a FUFISM based marketing perspective your web site is the primary hub of your online presence, and needs to be used as the core element of your customer / supplier / client communications network.

Every business needs to examine their business plan, and understand the purpose, aims and objectives of their business as laid out in their business plan. This purpose aims and objectives of your business or organisation is then used as a basis to design a marketing strategy, where your online presence needs to be the central point of your marketing strategy.

Your website should be viewed as an essential asset that is used as a communications tool, and forms the core of all your marketing, advertising and customer interaction platforms, both online and offline.

Online marketing has\many different components, and these all need to be considered when planning your marketing. The trick question is how will you integrate these into your website and your total marketing plan.

YOUR ONLINE MARKETING SHOULD NOT BE SEPARATED FROM YOUR OFF LINE MARKETING

Your online marketing and offline marketing should complement each other and work as a team to get your branding and related business issues noticed by your intended target market audience in a manner that is not intrusive, objectionable or disruptive, but is pleasant, memorable and sticky so that your brand will be in the thinking patterns and thought processes of your intended target market audience when they are looking for your products, services or related information.

So keeping the above stuff in mind, what is the purpose of your web site?

Well this is a very loaded question, and your website has a multitude of purposes, but it is our view that the primary purpose of your web site is to serve as a communications hub, that is customer focused and services the information flow needs of your intended target market audience as well as but not limited to :

your marketing department
your Public relations management team
enhance your sales team and sales related administrative staff
enhance your customer care and related Public relations needs
solve after sales queries and offer product information updates
interface between your various social media marketing teams and administrative staff
act as an online brochure
act as a cold calling business rep.
act as a lead generation source
So many more purposes that are at first hidden and not very obvious at first glance.

The HOA (Hangout On Air) embedded below where +Ammon Johns and +Vincent Messina discuss QUALITIES OF AN EFFECTIVE BUSINESS WEBSITE is very helpful in expanding the issues that you need to consider when determining the purpose of your web site. Take note that the purpose of having an online presence and a website will vary considerably from company to company.

This HOA helps explain the PURPOSE of your web site!!! Watch and enjoy.

Remember to document what you think is the purpose, aims and objectives of your web site, and be sure to share this with your marketing team. Then ask that other departments in your business read over this document and ask them to comment where they think their department fits into this document, and what they feel that you need to add to this document, discussing the purpose, aims and objectives of your web site.

Do not ignore this input, but act on it and take this feed back to your design team asking how this new perspective can be integrated into your existing website in ways that enhance your customer experience.

Be sure that your social media team are aware of this document discussing the purpose, aims and objectives of your website. Also ensure that your social media marketing team makes good well balanced use of this information when doing their stuff within the social media environment.

It is vital that your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) team are aware of this document and make use of this when working with other departments as well as your various different marketing teams. This will help to ensure that your SEO is better integrated into your total marketing plan.

Your document discussing the purpose, aims and objectives of your web site needs to be reviewed and updated at least once every month, then the revised document should be discussed with all your marketing teams, asking how these changes impact on their work. If there ARE NO CHANGES ask your entire marketing team WHY ARE THERE NO CHANGES because things are constantly in flux, and many of your aims and objectives should have been accomplished within one month. You may also have thought of a new purpose that is not listed, but not added it. Be sure to add all new purposes identified, as this will have an impact on the content of your web site, and may give your content marketing team new perspectives that they can exploit..

Do you have a web site policy document for your business?

If not then make a plan and develop a website policy document as part and parcel of your business policy documentation that is part of your business plan.

Your web site should be updated regularly and maintained property by the same team who designed your web site. Your web site is your primary online asset, and needs to be treated with the same respect that you treat your office space, taking into account that this is the digital entrance to your business, so your web pages should display the appropriate style and branding that your customers would expect to find when they walked into your offices.

Your website serves a multitude of purposes, and each of these purposes needs to be listed in your business plan, and then also listed in your marketing plan, as well as in your business policy documentation.

Sunday, July 05, 2015

What is the SEO value of offline marketing?

OFF LINE MARKETING HAS EXTREME VALUE WITHIN THE ONLINE MARKETING BUSINESS!

Those who do not understand the connections between off line marketing and online content need to listen up and take action!!!!!

SEO or search engine optimisation changed very radical when Google introduced their HUMMINGBIRD ALGORITHM. Before Google hummingbird and all its cousins in other search engines the main items in all SEO were your keywords and links, both inbound and out bound, with inbound links carrying more value, but out bound links being an essential issue. The value of key words was stressed and used extensively by Search engines.

In the post hummingbird era all search engines introduced a very large number of new SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) which ran along side the old SEOVI and added extra value to your keywords in ways that enhance the context and intent of your online content. These new Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators are mostly in the form of Semantic Trust and associated inter-connectivity of different digital entities, and come from the OPSEO side of things.

OPSEO or off page Search Engine Optimisation is not that well understood, and most do not comprehend that OPSEO has two separate components. The first is ONLINE and the second is OFF LINE. So from a #FUFISM based marketing perspective we have three sectors of Search engine Optimisation that need to be considered and then integrated into your total marketing plan. These are

1) #IPSEO or In Page Search Engine Optimisation

2) #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation

3) #OLSEO or Off Line Search Engine Optimisation

The value of In page and off page search engine optimisation is discussed in many places but who talks of the value of Off Line Search Engine Optimisation?

Off Line Search engine Optimisation or OLSEO, is the part where you use your off line marketing to PLANT SEMANTIC SEEDS into the thinking patterns and thought processes of your intended target market, hoping that these seeds will grow into so called GOLDEN SEARCH QUERIES. Golden search queries are those search queries where your intended target market audience uses your KEY WORDS and semantically related terms in their search queries, which result in your online content being at the top of the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

As always understanding your target market audience in great depth is the core issue that needs to be addressed here, because you want them (your target audience) to be exposed to your key words, so that you can expand on this in your social media marketing and other related online areas to nurture and nourish the semantic seeds that you planted in the off line media. In other words you need to ensure that your target audience knows what your business, organization or event is all about, so that they can use the correct terminology in their search queries to surface your online content.

If you simply assume that your intended target market are experts on your subject matter, then you are losing out. You need to encourage your intended target market to use your desired key words in their search queries, and this process starts by introducing these words and related terminology within the off line world. Here we are talking about

news paper advertising and marketing
magazines and industry specific periodicals
radio interviews and talk shows
speaking events and road shows
flyers and bill boards
business cards and brouchers
any other off line opportunity where you have face tine with your customers, clients, suppliers and other interested parties

Your SEO starts with the creation of your In Page content, and is then enhanced by your off page work which is basically supplemental marketing, or marketing that supplements your online marketing. Your supplemental marketing uses all the same research as your original online content and here we are talking of things like the list below, but include many not mentioned.

product, event, company or subject matter research

purpose
what this is used for
how this is used
what will the end user needs this for
what are the benefits
what are the detraction's
who should use this and why
costs,
shelf life
availability
origins
so many other research issues most of which are subject matter dependent

target market research

who should read your content and why
language issues
culture issues
demographic issues
male / female
target market groups and lay out preferences
education and literacy skills

Target market selection process
Topic research
key word research
Image selection
Additional meta data
Additional mark up such as schema
Author and publisher issues
design criteria for online content

Your off line marketing team needs to be aware of these issues and make wise use of the research notes and other related documentation of both previous as well as future online content. This will assist them in their choice of words, images, context and related marketing issues, so as to ensure that they are able to plant your desired semantic seeds in meaningful ways, which will encourage your intended target market audience to use specific words (your key words) when they construct their search queries. Your social media team will also need these same notes and research data, as they will be expanding on this within their marketing efforts. Your blogging team will also be using the same set of notes to develop their online content.

It is thus of extreme importance. especially from a #FUFISM based marketing perspective to get all your marketing folks around the same table, at the same time, to discuss your total marketing plan, and show each different marketing team, where and how their part of the puzzle fits into the big picture. This will ensure better documentation of all processes, and enhance cross media marketing efforts.

It is of extreme importance that all your marketing is done within this basic outline, so that each marketing effort can be seen as a stand alone effort, but that it also fits into and augments or supplements your online marketing efforts. This is an awful lot more important today than it was just a few years back, and the reason is the rapid expansion of the smart phone market and the volume of search traffic that comes from smart phones and other mobile devices.

You should not forget that mobile search is now larger than desktop search, and that many searchers are using last minute searches when in your brick and mortar establishment to ensure that they are getting the best deal, be it price, product support or after sales care.

What this means is that your target market is more educated and more aware of your competition, so you need to ensure that your online content is found above that of your competition, and that your social media team are on the ball, and ready to answer questions at the drop of a hat.

Once again your customers journey starts when they first discover your off line content, and then use the info found within your off line content to venture further, by searching online to discover more about you and your business. The next step along the way is usually your social media space, and that is the reason that you need to expose your target market to your social media presence within the off line environment, and associate your social media presence with your product, service, event or other information.

Your Off Line marketing thus has an awful lot of value and importance to your online marketing, and needs to be taken seriously. You need to ensure that all three of the SEO sectors are addressed and properly integrated into your total marketing plan at the highest level. preferably at the C-SUIT (Chief Something Officers) level

Once again these three sectors of SEO are, 1) IPSEO, 2) OPSEO, 3) OLSEO

Thursday, October 16, 2014

The value of Conversion Optimisation from a FUFISM perspective

Because we are looking at Conversion Optimisation from a #FUFISM perspective we firstly need to remind you what we mean by the term +fufism

FUFISM is an acronym for Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media and also a marketing philosophy where SEO and your target market research are two of the primary areas that need to be integrated into your total marketing strategy through effective and properly managed use of the social media

Next we need to describe what we mean when we talk about Conversion optimisation, and how this works

In internet marketing, conversion optimization, or conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the method of creating an experience for a website or landing page visitor with the goal of increasing the percentage of visitors that convert into customers. It is also commonly referred to as CRO.

Conversion Rate Optimization is the process of increasing website leads and sales without spending money on attracting more visitors by reducing your visitor "bounce rate". A conversion rate is defined as the percentage of visitors who complete a goal, as set by the site owner. Some test methods, such as split testing or A/B testing, enable one to monitor which headlines, images and content help one convert more visitors into customers.

There are several approaches to conversion optimization with two main schools of thought prevailing in the last few years. One school is more focused on testing as an approach to discover the best way to increase a website, a campaign or a landing page conversion rates. The other school is focused more on the pretesting stage of the optimization process. In this second approach, the optimization company will invest a considerable amount of time understanding the audience and then creating a targeted message that appeals to that particular audience. Only then would it be willing to deploy testing mechanisms to increase conversion rates.

Next we need to understand the term BOUNCE RATE

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bounce rate (sometimes confused with exit rate is an Internet marketing term used in web traffic analysis. It represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and "bounce" (leave the site) rather than continue viewing other pages within the same site. Bounce rate is a measure of the effectiveness of a website in encouraging visitors to continue with their visit. It is expressed as a percentage and represents the proportion of visits that end on the first page of the website that the visitor sees

Search engines also use this, but they have a timed version where a user is allocated a time to click on a call to action statement within the page, and if this time exceeds the predetermined time then a bounce is recorded. This time factor is set by the search engines, and us as site owners and marketing professionals have zero input to determine this time factor. We also have no clue as to what this time factor is.

From my research it appears that partial bounce rates do exist (at least for Google) and that the time is not set in stone, and may vary according to the complexity of the search term as well as the polarity of the search term.

Next we need to understand the term CTA or Call to action,

In terms of online marketing a CALL TO ACTION is a reference to a link within the content which the marketing team has placed strategically to entice the end user (your target market) to click on so that they may proceed to the next stage of the conversion funnel.

Using the above definition, we must assume that every navigational link on the page is also a CTA. These navigational links may not necessarily be part of the sales or conversion funnel, but they are never the less important CTA's which allow your end user (your target audience) to move between pages and gather the information that they are looking for.

Next issue to confront is what is a #SERP

A SERP is basically the result that a search engine returns when an end user types a query into the search box and either clicks on search or presses the return key. This result is mostly pre-calculated by a search engine after your pages are indexed, using a host of different criteria, such as but not limited to:

page rank,
domain rank,
your key words in page,
your inbound marketing,
your social media marketing,
your content marketing,
your SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
The semantics relating to your in-page content
All your other SEO efforts, both #IPSEO (Inpage Search Engine Optimisation) and #OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation)

Now that we have an understanding of the terminology used here, lets get to grips with the value of Conversion Optimisation in terms of the bounce rate, and as such your SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) If an end user does not stay on a page long enough (in terms of the search engines perspective) to gain any value from their visit to the page then this will have a negative impact on the bounce rate from the Search engines perspective. One way to eliminate this negative perspective from a search engine is to have the end user click on any CTA within the page. The search engine does not care of your perceived value of this click in terms of your sales funnel or conversion funnel, and NO CLICK = bad news for bounce rates

Bounce rates are currently (October 2014) one of the primary signals being used by many search engines including Google as SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) to determine their SERP's

It thus follows that CO or Conversion Optimisation is a key element in your SEO strategy, and if not done properly, the damage to your online marketing can and will be considerable. What most SEO practitioners forget to tell you is that any bad bonce rates have a culminate impact on your domain rank, your page rank, your site's trust factor issues and some other ares that are critical to getting top notch SERP's

My advice to you is thus that you should monitor all your bounce rate issues, and ensure that any pages with a high bounce rate be evaluated in terms of your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and CO (Conversion Optimisation) policies and that you rectify these as soon as you can

Sources of research for this article

THIS LIST IS NOT EXHAUSTIVE AND EXCLUDES ALL INTERNAL SOURCE AT INFO4U

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_Rate_Optimization
2_ http://www.meteorsite.com/search-engine-optimization-seo
3) http://www.meteorsite.com/conversion-optimization
4) http://www.meteorsite.com/blog`
5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_rate
6) http://www.web1marketing.com/glossary.php?term=bounce+rate
7) http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/bounce_rate.html
8) https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1009409?hl=en
9) http://www.epower.com/google-analytics-glossary.php

J also evaluated many Google plus posts and conversations mainly with these profiles but also many others +fufism +David Amerland +Eric Enge +Joshua Berg +Jaana Nyström +Plus Your Business! +John Dietrich +SEO +SEO on Google+ - Search Engine Optimization +ReelSEO +Mark Robertson +Jeff Huber +Ammon Johns +Rand Fishkin

Thursday, August 21, 2014

What link building tactics do you use?

Is link building dead?

in short link building is not dead, and will not die any time soon!

That being said we do need to understand the many issues that surround link building, and the implications of your personal link building strategies. In the past when things in search first started out links were the primary SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicator) and links were gamed to the extent that Google and other search engines started showing very distorted and poor SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

see previous post discussing the value of a link in 2014

The search engines thus introduced algorithms that started to look for patterns that these so called BLACK HAT search engine optimisation practitioners were using, and started penalizing those who they thought were cheating or gaming the system. Google now has a number of NAMED ALGORITHMS , as well as many un-named algorithms, that look into these matters and related matters where Search Engine Optimisation Technical staff and online marketing practitioners SPAM the search engines in a variety of different ways using many different techniques.

Some of these named algorithms include :

>> PANDA

>> PENGUIN

>> HUMMING BIRD

>> PIGEON

These algorithms help to improve the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) and some are punitive, while others add value to the work of those who apply recommended tactics that are rather technical and difficult to implement, such as Google's author and publisher programs that are connected to Google plus.

This short video below will help you understand why I say that link building will not die any time soon, but link building has changed and it is now necessary to selectively screen out bad links and focus exclusively on high quality links from reputable sources when ever possible. The question asked was does Google have a version of search where back links are excluded. listen to what +Matt Cutts had to say then evaluate your own situation.

The question thus becomes What is link building and why is it important?

In short links, some times called HYPERLINKS are the tools that you use to allow the end user, or your audience to move from one place on the internet to another, and are the only tool that search engines have of locating your online content. If there are no links pointing to your page, then a search engine has no means of locating your page, and it will thus never be found in search. In the past the more inbound links a page had the better it did in search results.

Link building is the process that you follow to ensure that your web pages or blog posts acquire in bound links, be they internally from pages within your own web site / blog or externally from some other online resource.

Today, due to the amount of SPAM generated by so called BLACK HAT SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION this is no longer true, and Google as well as all other search engines now use the quality of links more than the quantity of links. Then within Google search there is the issue of PANDA and PENGUIN which both have negative or punitive tools that tackle SPAM and bad quality web pages

It is thus important that you understand the need to have a link building policy in place, and that this link building policy needs to be well documented and shared with every person who has anything to do with your total marketing plan. Bad links can come from a number of sources, and those who do not know about these issues can very inadvertently make use of a link building farm or some other bad tactic, thinking that they are helping your marketing efforts. New employees or junior marketers who have not been exposed to the impacts of bad links may not understand what a link farm is, and believe they are being helpful in getting traffic to your pages.

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF BAD LINKS TO SINK YOUR ONLINE MARKETING EFFORTS, BE CAREFUL WHEN DEVELOPING YOUR LINK BUILDING POLICY

The social media is currently a very big source of links to your online content, and as such you do need to have a social media policy in place to deal with these issues. Once again Your social media policy needs to be well documented and shared with everybody who has anything to do with your marketing, be it online or not. You need to remember that all your offline marketing has a very big impact on your online marketing in many ways, especially when it comes to issues around search. You will need to include your link building policy within your social media marketing policy,as they are very interconnected.

Off line marketing has strange impacts on your intended target audience, and this is where you should use terminology and language that is specific to your business interests. Your target audience will be induced to use the words and language in your off line marketing to search online to discover more about your company, your products or your services, and you need to be aware of this in your online marketing, especially in your social media marketing, as this is where you will have direct one on one conversations with your target audience as well as many others who may or may not have a direct interest in your product, service or business proposition.

The people who you have conversations with online within the social media space, may or may not decide to place links within their posts to your web pages or blogs, and as such you need to influence these OUT SIDERS in a positive manner so that any links that they may place within their social media posts are positive and relevant to pages within your web site or blog.

These issues are also confounded and confused when marketers say that you should not be doing any link building at all. Link building as a term is also a very difficult term to come to grips with in the current scenario where past link building practices have destroyed web sites through their spam attacks and the use of link farms. Link building has definitely changed a great deal over the last few years, and is now a very delicate art that is not properly understood. On the one hand an online resource must have inbound links, these links need to be of high quality and carry some authority to have any success in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) and on the other hand excessive links as well as links of low quality can cause a web site or blog some serious damage within the SERP's.

The guys at +Moz recently published an article called The beginners guide to link building which I have found very helpful, and shared with my audience in other places. The G+ post embedded below is actually what inspired this post, as I commented there and had an interesting conversation with both +Mike Gracia and +William Rock Take some time and read the comments as I believe they will help you to understand the great difficulties that we as online marketers have in dealing with the changes in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) issues as well as how different people interpret the terminology within the search engine optimisation world. Please remember that these are sensitive issues, and need great care, so ask for second and third opinions, then apply your own mind and be aware of those who are willing to game the system.

THERE IS LOTS OF BAD ADVICE OUT THERE

Thursday, July 24, 2014

FUFISM INFOGRAPHIC discussing impact on SERP's

This infographic discusses how #FUFISM impacts on your SERP's and shows some of the many different aspects of SEO that need to work together in a collaborative effort to generate meaningful Search Engine results pages for your intended target market audience.

FUFISM is a marketing philosophy where the social media is the core communication tool that allows the different sections of your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) team to collaborate and share information, in a manner that binds all your marketing, both online and off line into one single super marketing campaign.

It should be remembered that the purpose of SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is to ensure that your intended target market complete the call to action statements embedded in your online content after discovering your online content through using a search engine.

See (http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html) for a definition of SEO
See (http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/p/fufism-functional-user-firendly.html) for a definition of #FUFISM

how #FUFISM impacts on your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and resulting search engine results Pages (SERP) pages

Wednesday, June 04, 2014

Google plus engaement issues from a #FUFISM perspective

Google plus is a great platform for a variety of reasons, with the primary one being that you will have a foot in the door as far as Google Search is concerned. Google has many indexing issues with other social media platforms, and the walled garden effect is often very serious, with all non public posts being excluded from Google's sphere of influence.

Getting traction within any specific market is an ongoing issue that needs due diligence and proper interpretation of your target market audience, and when using the social media you need to ensure that those who follow you, or are within your social network form part of your target market audience. This means that you need to do true, in-depth target market research, and have a very clear understanding of who your target audience is and how you are going to interact with them in a manner that allows you to place your call to action statements. Google plus has specific options for you to do this via specialist business pages that are directly linked to your personal profile and associated page.

You do need to separate your personal life from your business life when doing any social media marketing. Failure to do this will lead to poor branding and mixed signals to your target audience. You personal profile should be used as a platform to brand yourself as an ambassador for your business and community related pages within all social media platforms, and you should never be salesy or pushy within your personal profile page. This sounds very easy, but is infact a really difficult thing to do.

You personal profile page describes you as an individual, and is where your personality and industry specific knowledge will shine through and allow others to interact and engage with you on a personal level. once you have a personal connection then you may, if appropriate, lead this person down the conversion path to become a client, customer or fellow activist in your cause.

You should have a business page in place, where you do business related stuff and push you business opportunities through links to your web site, your blog and other online resources. You should also have a community page in place where your business issues are discussed in depth and you mange various sectors of your business opportunities, through different categories within the community, informing those who have taken the time to join your community of your services, products, events and other areas of interest.

As an individual you should also be a member of various communities that have links to your business model, your products, your services or the events that you handle. This is industry specific, and you will need to choose these after studying your intended target audience and their social media habits, so that you can lead them to your business page or your community without being pushy or obnoxious in any way.

Your entire marketing team needs to be up to speed with he various platforms and different sections of each platform that you, as an individual are using, so that your personal and business profiles can be used to the best advantage to interact with your
target audience in the most appropriate manner.

A post by +curator Circle discussing some of these related issues within Google plus itself.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

The marketing benefits of a CATCH ALL email address?

MARKETING BENEFITS OF USING A

CATCH ALL EMAIL ADDRESS

CATCH ALL EMAIL ADDRESSES EXPLAINED

A catch all email address is a very powerful marketing tool that comes along with owning your own domain, and as the name says, it catches all. This is a very technical issue that is simple to implement and easy to use with just a little planning and an understanding of what a catch all email address can do.

An email address is divided into three distinct parts,

YOURNAME@DOMAIN

the first part (RED) is the user name on your mail server

The second part (BLUE) is the postal indicator

the third part (YELLOW) is your domain

To be able to use a catch all email address you will need to have access to the mail server for the domain in question. If you own the domain then this is not an issue, how ever if you are doing marketing for a brand, product or service provider you will need to negotiate the use of a catch all email address with the IT or web section / division

Each active email address that a company uses is registered as a user with their mail server, and is set up by either the web design team, the internal IT division or a person appointed by the company to manage their email issues. A catch all email address is a specific email address, which has been given special privileges and user rights on your mail server , and will as such receive all emails that are addressed to any non registered email user within your domain.

Many large email providers ensure that all unrouted emails are sent directly to the BLACK HOLE (Deleted) as there would be an awful lot of unrouted emails. How ever most companies that sell products and services to the public are small and have a low level of unrouted email.

So a catch all email address is an email address that receives all email addressed to every unregistered username on your company email server.

The next issue to consider once you have a catch all email address set up is, how are you going to manage your catch all email address, and who will be responsible to ensure that all received emails are dealt with in the appropriate manner.

A catch all email address works best when you apply a #FUFISM based marketing strategy.

Your email service provider has already set up spam filters that will eliminate a large percentage of SPAM , and these include such things as the marketing of porn sites and the sale of VIAGRA as well as some pay day loan offers that arrive by email.

You will need to set up filters to further sort out spam from customer interactions, automatically forwarding engagement emails to the correct employee's email address, then deleting detected spam, and following up with human inspection of the remaining emails to determine if they should be deleted or acted upon.

The marketing power of a catch all email address is not at first self evident, as it really comes to play in evaluating the ROI (Return On Investment) of individual marketing campaigns. Imagine giving each marketing campaign it's own individual specific email address, and having stats on which email address was used to convert prospects to customers, along with where each email address was displayed or used.

How to set up a marketing campaign using a catch all email address

Create the content for your marketing campaign as per standard practice for your company / organisation .

In the call to action statement ensure that you are requesting a response by email. Choose an email address that will have some meaning to your target market audience, and ensure that this email address is not registered with your email server as a user.

An example here would be seo4u2use@info4u.co.za if you were selling Search Engine Optimisation Services and your domain was Info4u.co.za.

Be sure to check with the person who reads the catch all email that they have re-routed (forwarded) the email address chosen for this campaign to the relevant person, and do a physical check by sending mail to the specified address and ensuring that it is received by the correct person before you allow your web design team, your blogger or your social media staff to publish the content that you have created as part of this specific marketing campaign.

Once you have a few campaigns running you will soon be able to see which ones are working and which are not working by evaluating the information flow patterns to each separate email address. The beauty of using this trick with a catch all email address is that you do not need to create a new user on your email server for each new campaign, then go through the rigmarole of setting this email account up on an individuals PC or laptop. All you need to do is ensure that the filters on the catch all email address are functioning correctly and that email sent to the campaign specific email address is re-routed (Forwarded) to the correct person, or persons within your team.

There are many other benefits that come along with a catch all email address, as it can be used in many ways to do a host of different Public relations things, like when you do an email survey, having the email address read product.survey@info4u.co.za where product.survey is relevant to the end user and their interests thus this will elicit a trust factor and hopefully get better responses.

Another strange benefit of a catch all email address comes into play when people know your domain, but do not know any specific email address at your domain and they thus use a pot luck email address like help@info4u.co.za or ceo@info4u.co.za which your staff who manage the catch all email address will be able to re-route to the correct person within your company or organisation.

The marketing benefits of using a catch all email address are not easily recognized, as these are hidden in the technical notes of the mail server architecture and the technical staff do not get along so well with the marketing staff at most places where I have worked. This means that the technical details and marketing value of a catch all email address is not discussed with your marketing team, and thus most marketers that I have spoken to do not even know that such a thing as a catch all email address actually exists.

The ability to have many different email addresses that each refer to a position within your staff is a very powerful tool when used on the contact us page, as this creates the illusion that you are a large, well structured and organised business. When a potential prospect takes the time to write to more than one member of your management team, as many people do, and gets personalised replies from each email that he / she sent the trust factor is elevated considerably.

Making use of a catch all email address is as simple as teaching a person how to set up a system to re-route emails to the correct person within your organisation, as well as establishing a set of filters that automatically forward emails to designated email addresses to the correct active email address.

Tuesday, January 07, 2014

Pinterest and FUFISM

FUFISM back ground info

#FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media has many facets and covers a large spectrum of different strategies. Each social media platform has its own traits and needs to have its own set of in-house rules that need to be made available to all people working on your marketing team.

This means that your marketing management team need to determine a platform specific policy for each social media platform which your marketing team should have access to. Each Member of your marketing team actually needs to have a copy of each separate social media platform's policies and procedures after being work-shopped on the main purpose of using that platform within your total marketing strategy.

To some this may sound like a bit of over kill from managements directives, but if not done, the results will not be any where near what they should be. One must remember that the purpose of using social media as a marketing tool is to get the end user or your intended target market to specific pages within your website, where he / she will be expected to follow your call to action statement.

So how does PINTEREST fit into this picture?

Pinterest is a picture / image sharing social media platform that has many unique characteristics and we will focus primarily on the ability to have themed pin boards for pictures in selected categories. If you are not familiar with pinterest then you should take a short detour to www.pinterest.com and have a peep see what all the fuss is about before reading further.

The first step in this process of using pinterest as a marketing tool is to write up the purpose of using pinterest along with a set of aims and objectives as well as an in-house policy document on how the rest of your marketing team should interact with your pinterest profile and boards. Each specific marketing campaign should have its own separate documentation for your pinterest profile, and share the pin boards that you have in place.

To be able to write up the purpose of using pinterest as a marketing tool one needs to understand what pinterest does and how this is done. see http://business.pinterest.com/whats-pinterest/ for details

PINTEREST purpose related issues

From a FUFISM perspective pinterest is an image sharing platform that allows your marketing team to use a single image reference in ALL other social media platforms in a way that it will funnel your intended target market back to the page where that specific image with its associated call to action live, in anticipation, waiting for your intended target audience to be enticed into clicking on your call to action statement. This means that the original image MUST be enticing, and clearly depict something that your target audience will relate to, such as your product or a very descriptive image that reflects your service or the idea that you are trying to convey to your intended target audience. see http://www.pinterest.com/pin/100275529177237087/ Remember that once an end user clicks on your pin he / she will be taken back to the original page where the image was first pinned.

Use a URL shortening service and generate a user friendly URL that will help you entice an end user to click on the link to your pin. example http://bit.ly/hashtag-marketing this link opens a page discussing hash tag marketing (#hashtagmarketing) in this blog.

Pinterest is a powerful social media platform that is growing into a must have marketing tool, as it adds very large volumes of SEOVI (Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators) to your online work. Pinterest has a large domain authority that spreads an awful lot of SEO value and is instrumental in elevating many web sites higher into the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) If you can get others to re-pin your pins and share them, then the social signals associated with your pin will add further SEOVI to your pinterest profile, which in turn will boost your other SEO efforts. Pinterest adds true value to your semantic profile within all search engines, and this is of extreme importance within Google with the advent of Google Humming Bird Algorithm which has a very large focus on semantic issues.

IMAGE NAMING and descriptions

Referencing your pinterest pins in posts within other social media platforms adds extra value to your pinterest profile as a whole and the specific pin in particular. You need to make use of this through using an integrated approach, and ensuring that you mention your pinterest pins in the correct context within your social media posts on all other social media platforms. This is not such a difficult thing to accomplish when your marketing campaign is put together from a FUFISM perspective, where the big picture is properly in the central marketing focal area, and your pages where your call to action statements are properly constructed using the image which you will pin within your pinterest profile as a visual hook with the in page assembly, using well thought through

image file names
Image descriptions
image titles
image alt text
image key words

PIN BOARD NAMES within pinterest.

This set of target market orientated image expansion tactics needs to be well thought through and be well documented so that your copy writers who construct your other social media posts can use the same set of key words during their efforts to entice your intended target market to click on the link back to your page. The description of your pin within your pinterest profile should also contain as many of these words in well constructed sentences or partial sentences as you can so that they make clear and meaningful impacts on your intended target market should they read them. This is also very critical from a semantic perspective as these efforts will add tremendous semantic value to both your pin and the original web page where your image and related call to action statements reside.

You will need to take some time and effort in evaluating the naming process of your different boards within your pinterest profile, and ensure that each individual board is named and described with your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) tactics in mind. These pin board names and descriptions must fit into the rest of your marketing plan, as they will be associated with your web site, blog and other online marketing avenues.

For more help in setting up your pinterest profile and related in-page SEO issues contact our friendly staff at pinterst.help@info4u.co.za, visit our Google plus page or ask your question in a comment on this post.

Monday, December 09, 2013

Basic information flow issues for FUFISM based marketing

FUFISM INFORMATION FLOW PATTERNS

FUFISM is a marketing philosophy where the social media forms the core element in your marketing strategies and is integrated into your total marketing plan as the main communication platform which is dictated by company policy.

#FUFISM is an acronym for Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media, and is a very far reaching marketing strategy which includes all the different aspects of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and is extremely target market focused. A FUFISM based marketing campaign originates with the management deciding on a product / service or idea that they want marketed, then giving the marketing team a directive to develop a strategy that would achieve the purpose, aims and objectives within the company's marketing policy framework.

The marketing team will then establish a target market audience and generate some content around the product / service or idea that the management has instructed them to market, which is target market specific. Once they have the content and have established a content marketing strategy, the marketing team would start by establishing a web page or group of web pages where the target market focused call to action statement and the conversion funnel end point are accommodated.

Next step is to write one or more blog posts marketing the web pages in question, which is followed up by using the social media to market both the blog posts associated with the web pages as well as the web pages themselves. This is then backed up with the necessary social media links and social media platform specific logos being added to both the web pages and the associated blog posts.

You would now have a three pronged marketing strategy with

a web page or group of web pages as the base
A blog that backs up the web page / pages and interacts with your social media platforms.
One our more social media platforms that promote and interact with both the blog and associated web pages in ways that the intended target market can reach out to your staff and communicating directly with the appropriate employees in your organisation through online based forms in your website, on your blog or through the aspects of the social media platform that you have used.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

The value of LOCAL SEO from a FUFISM perspective

author : Frank Gainsford

To understand the issues connected to LOCAL SEO we need to put a few things into perspective.

What is SEO is the first thing, and believe you me, this is a very big issue as many people have the wrong impression of SEO. Quotes from our pages discussing SEO follow to help you understand the issue.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation should be defined as the collective effort of your entire marketing team in their efforts to ensure that your online information is found by your intended target market when they search for your information, products or services online.

a different explanation of what is SEO

SEO or Search engine optimisation is the collective online effort of your entire marketing team to ensure that your pages are indexed in search engines in a manner that ensures that you get qualified visitors who are looking for your products, services or related information.

So SEO is thus not just the sneaky coded stuff that the technical guys add to your page, but includes, though is not limited to

In page SEO through a variety of coding techniques within the HTML.as well as context applicable content that is target market orientated and well written by a good copy writer.
SMO (Social Media Optimisation) where the social signals and related links to your online information is worked on to maximize the SEOVI that are associated with social media
SEM (Search Engine Marketing) where search engine results pages or SERP's are the primary concern, and your online content is focused for search engines and not the end users of your content
SMM (Social Media Marketing) similar to SMO but focused on your social networks and not their social interactions with your content.
Content marketing where the content appreciation by your target market is the focal area and not the search engines or social media platforms.
Link building and related tactics to generate inbound links

Managers need to understand that SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a very big issue and it needs to be integrated into the company marketing policy and managed from the top in a co-ordinated and integrated fashion. SEO is no longer the stand alone department that it used to be, but should now be an integral part of any online marketing strategy.

There have been many statements saying that SEO is dead, but these are just smoke screens to get you to follow some new approach to SEO in disguised and minimized format.

The fact that SEO is not dead, but rather very active and growing is discussed on the 4u brand blog here

These tactics and many others are discussed in our blog page discussing SEO

So what is GEO LOCATION, #geolocation and #geolocationmarketing

First thing we need to establish about local SEO is that it is GEO based and thus has a local Geographically exclusive targeted audience. GEO based means that it is based on Geographical co-ordinates which are based on latitude and longitude readings, as in map reading, with a two figure reading reflecting the exact geographical location of your brick and mortar shop, office, restaurant or business premisses by latitude and longitude

So for local SEO to be implemented the first steps are to establish some means for Google and other search engines to know the GEO Based information about your Brick and mortar location or physical location as in street address. This is best done by having a Google Local page where your business is indicated by a pin, or other marker, that you place on the map yourself, and backed up by doing similar on BING and Yahoo's platforms, as well as any other that you deem necessary.

You also need to ensure that you are consistent with your NAP info... (Name Address Phone = NAP) across all platforms and in all online marketing strategies. This is vitally important especially since Google Humming Bird has flown into the picture where the semantics of all your online efforts are examined and utalised to determine your semantic mapping issues and related SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators)

Google now places great emphasis on your GEO LOCATION for the context of an end users search, and if searching for a restaurant will return the closest listed restaurants in the SERP's, using your geo location, because of the semantic associations of your content to the context of the search. see this INFOGRAPHIC for a better understanding

Geo Location Based Marketing ( #geolocationmarketing ) is thus marketing that takes your latitude and longitude into account, and focuses primarily on local SEO marketing tactics. This is also very useful when people search for things near known landmarks and such as schools, hospitals, hotels and tourism based attractions which might be near your business. an example for a search of this nature this might be "closest restaurant to sunrise point" or "nearest petrol station to M 25 East and M 22 North intersection"

Next issue to consider is what all is taken into consideration when a user performs an online search.

With Google's semantic search, as associated with the Google Humming Bird Algorithm your current GEO LOCATION as determined by a variety of factors is one of the prime SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that are used. If you are using a mobile device when you perform a search then Google looks at a variety of additional issues, such as are you walling in a shopping mall or traveling between locations, and if so in which direction, and what mode of transport you are using. This is done through following your trail by means of triangulation stats as supplied by your cell phone service provider or WiFi service provider, which Google can overlay on bus routes, train routes and major highways.

The time of day, and an end users previous search patterns are also included in this assessment of the semantic context of any search query.

It is thus important that you have taken the time to consider the many issues connected to local search, and done the necessary research about you location and surrounding areas to be able to make use of local vocabulary, local land marks and local businesses so that you may include these in your online content in ways that will make meaningful contributions to your local SEO efforts, which will then be better matched to a local search query for your business, organisation or the products and services that you offer.

Local landmarks of any significance should be mentioned and any connections that these may have to your business should be exploited in your copy, in such a manner that search engines will be able to connect these to your business in the correct context. An example here would be if your business is within the hospitality arena you would discuss any historical landmarks from a tourism perspective, and how your business caters for visitors to the area, as well as how far you are from the specific land mark. Things like parking and access to your business are also of extreme importance here. If you business is in a shopping mall, then you should discuss the mall as a general attraction and mention other shops as well as related businesses within the mall by name within your content in ways that a search engine would be able to connect these businesses to your physical location as well. The new semantic search criteria are at stake here, and the connection between your business and the rest of the businesses within the mall as being part of a shopping complex is the issue that you need to have enforced through your content and related social media marketing strategies.

During your local SEO efforts you should try to mention your street name, your suburb name, your district name, your local municipality name, your post code (ZIP CODE), your phone number and area dialing codes, the closest railway station, local bus terminal names and any other local names that are used by your intended target market in their day to day conversations that may refer to your area or your specific location.

Local SEO is an awful lot easier in small towns than it is in the city, as there are many fewer competing businesses for the same street name, the same suburb name, the same town name and similar names, but this dies not mean that those in small towns should skimp here, but rather that they will do better if all the issues are addressed as completely as possible.

Local SEO favors small business over big brands, and is the small guys window to display their stuff near the top of the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) purely because big brands do not have a local presence of any significance. This means that small business has an added advantage if they make use of the LOCAL issue in a manner that Google can interpret and attach local contextual meaning to their content.

Now from reading the above you will realise the true power of the local search issue when you take into consideration that Google uses the exact GPS (Global Positioning System) location of the searcher, and has means of determining the physical distance in meters between the searcher and your brick and mortar location which you have so meticulously crafted and entered into all those sneaky locations on Google Local and other online forums.

Local SEO is thus a very powerful sub set of your total SEO package that you should not ignore, but rather enhance through a FUFISM based approach to your online marketing strategy.

Once again for those who do not know what #FUFISM is

Quote from our page discussing #hashtagmarketing

FUFISM is a marketing philosophy where the social media forms the core functional element of the communication factors involved in online marketing and is used to integrate all the different marketing strategies into one coherent and integrated project where each marketing campaign may be worked on in isolation, but remains connected to the whole through its links to the social media as well as the publisher and the author or authors of the various online components of each campaign

Pages used for research during this post... in no particular order. Each of these links is a post in its own rights and will add value to your understanding of LOCAL SEO.

https://www.google.com/local
http://www.semrush.com/blog/tips/getting-started-local-seo/
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/local-listings/
http://www.localseoguide.com/
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2293053/Google-Places-for-Business-vs.-Google-Local
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2284954/Getting-Started-With-Google-Places-for-Business
http://localseo.org/
http://www.geolocalseo.com/
http://www.martinshervington.com/what-is-google-local-and-how-to-set-up-a-page/
http://4ubrand.blogspot.com

publisher

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

The relationship between FUFISM and Hash Tags

Hash tags are very sneaky and devious symbols that add tremendous value to your online marketing within the social media sphere. Hashtags (#) have been around for an awful long time, but have only been added to the social media marketing arena quite recently. A list of pages that were accessed during research for this post and associated #hashtagmarketing concepts is appended at the end of the post. These pages are not in any order and should each be accessed by you, as each one of these linked pages will add to your understanding of hash tags and the power that the #hashtag adds to your marketing arsenal.

For us to explain the powerful relationship between #FUFISM and #hashtagmarketing , as far as SEO, SMO, general marketing, online marketing and social media marketing in particular are concerned, we will need to briefly out line each of these topics and a few other related issues, then we will discuss how they are interconnected, and show you what we at Info4u consider to be best practice for effective #HASGTAGMARKETING or marketing using the # (hash tag) as a campaign search engine optimization tool that will carry campaign specific Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators.

FUFISM <=> Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media
SEO <=> Search Engine Optimisation
SEOVI <=> Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators
SMO <=> Social media Optimisation
SMM <=> Social Media Marketing
CM <=> Content Marketing
SEM <=> Search Engine Marketing
SERP <=> Search Engine Results Page
# <=> the hash tag (#hastag)

1) FUSISM

The best explanation that I have used so far is found here and is quoted below

Start quoe <<--FUFISM is a marketing philosophy where the social media forms the core functional element of the communication factors involved in online marketing and is used to integrate all the different marketing strategies into one coherent and integrated project where each marketing campaign may be worked on in isolation, but remains connected to the whole through its links to the social media as well as the publisher and the author or authors of the various online components of each campaign. -->> end quote

2) SEO

Search engine optimisation is mostly a misunderstood concept, with many thinking that SEO is purely the technical in page sneaky coded stuff that helps add SEOVI to your page, this is how ever a very big error in judgement, as Search Engine Optimisation is an extremely wide collection of various fields, where many different disciplines need to co-operate in a co-ordinated manner and I suggest the you read more about SEO here below is a quote from the page linked.

Start quote <<-- SEO or Search Engine Optimisation should be defined as the collective effort of your entire marketing team in their efforts to ensure that your online information is found by your intended target market when they search for your information, products or services online. -->> end quote

3) SEOVI

SEOVI or Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators is a term that I have started to use extensively to help me explain the term FUFISM. SEOVI are basically the different variables that a search engine would use in their algorithms to determine a relevant SERP that would supply the most likely answer to an end users query. SEOVI are the online marketing issues and specific tags within the HTML 5 set of tags, that are evaluated and assessed by your marketing team that would add some value for a search engine to your online work.

Social signals and related social media issues are also included as SEOVI and this is an awful lot more important, since the introduction of Google Humming Bird Algorithm, with Google's new approach to SEO, where semantics and the linguistics associated with semantics are now the primary issue to determine SERP's

See this Google Humming bird infographic and this post on the 4u brand Blog discussing Google Humming bird for a deeper insight into the meaning of SEOVI

4) SMO

SMO or Social Media Optimisation is a new concept which forms part and parcel of SEO or Search Engine Optimization, but is focused exclusively on the use of social media and the associated social signals that would be generated through the different posts on different social media platforms and their collective interaction with the target page where your campaign specific call to action would reside.

The best person to follow on Google plus for SMO is +Joshua Berg as Joshua takes these matter rather seriously and blogs about SMO extensively.

5) SMM

SMM or Social Media Marketing is the core function of SMO where the social media is used as the basis for online marketing to a specified niche market within a specific social media platform.

Social Media Marketing is basically a sub set of SMO (Social Media Optimisation) within the bigger picture of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) . SMO is getting quite a bit of attention since the introduction of the Google Humming Bird algorithm, but one does need to remember that SMM is just an off shoot of SMO and is in reality just one of the many components of SEO that you need to master in order to get the best value out of the organic SERP's in all search engines.

6) CM

CM or Content Marketing is a core component of SEO that needs some serious attention. many will tell you that content is king and this is something that you do need to evaluate with great care. The introduction of Google Humming bird makes this statement even more relevant, as the more content that you have online, the easier it is for Google to make better semantic correlations with your content and a search query.

Content Marketing is all about your content, and the content management plan that you have in place to manipulate your content through the use of data base management strategies, that display your content in a variety of different formats for different target market groups and different product lines within your various online resources, with the intent on ensuring that your intended target market enjoys your content and has a pleasant experience consuming your online content and engaging with you online.

7) SEM

SEM or Search Engine Marketing is a subset of SEO where the total focus is on the impacts of your SEO on the organic traffic in specific search engines. SEM does not consider the human element of things, and is thus (in our opinion at Info4u) a rather short sighted approach which should be properly evaluated then used sparingly.

SEM excludes semantics and focuses on KEY WORDs to the exclusion of most other SEO related issues.

There are how ever many people who will try to convince you differently, and it is your choice if you allow them to fool you or not. One must just consider the explanation of SEO as above, then think about how Search Engine Marketing fits into this picture to have a clear understanding of the real value of SEM

8) SERP

SERP's or Search Engine Results pages are a search engines answer to a users query, and contain a list of links which the search engine believes is the most likely set of links that would contain the most relevant answer to the end users query. SERP's usually refer to the organic result, but are also supplied in various other formats where ever a user searches online for an answer. Many of the social media platforms have their own in-house search which supplies SERP's drawn exclusively from within their walled gardens.

One must remember that there are only three different ways an end user may find your information.

1) luck or serendipity
2) due to some form of advertising such as

word of mouth or personal recomendation
radio advert
TV advert
print media advert (newspaper / flyer / bill board etc)
PPC (paid per click) advertising and add-words marketing
directory listing or other online advertising

3) by using a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, Bing or any other search engine.

Search engines use #SEOVI or Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators to asses the search values of a web page by processing these variables through a series of algorithms and then comparing the results to an end users query. This process starts long before a search is initiated by a search query, and in reality begins when a page is first crawled and indexed by a search engine of some type. The search engines send out what are commonly called spider bots which scour the internet looking for all online content by following links already in their databases, and indexing the content of every online resource that they can detect, and have permission to access.

Search engines perform many small tasks evaluating this information and store the results within a variety of different areas of their very large databases for later use in other search algorithms. This information then remains idle and awaits the final search algorithm which uses the information in the various databases where the many precursory algorithms have prepared your pages information and compares this to the end users search query using a host of short search algorithms and returns an answer in fractions of a second.

A SERP is thus a very complex issue that takes an awful lot of information into consideration and the #hashtag if present is just one of very many issues that a search engine has considered before passing you what it believes is the best possible solution to your query.

9) The Hashtag explained

The hashtag is a simple thing to implement, as it is done by preceding any typed word with the hash symbol. (#) The hash symbol is found on a standard QWERTY KEY BOARD as the "captial' of the number 3 on the upper row of numerals, or by holding down the shift key and pressing the "3" key

Note that some key boards in Europe and other parts of the world may be confusing as they have replaced the "shift 3" with other meanings, and the apple mac also has other issues see links below for more on this

Using the #hashtag with any word adds special meaning to that word, and helps any search engine add special value to your niche search by including only values that contain this very exclusive SEOVI. (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) in the SERP's for your hashtag.

So how does this tie in with your FUFISM based marketing and the (#) hashtag?

First thing you need to remember is that you need to take your time and establish a unique hash tag that will suit your marketing needs by evaluating your intended target market and understanding how this group will relate to your selected hashtag. This selected hashtag needs to be unique and must some how be connected to your brand, your product or your event that you will be marketing. see http://bit.ly/hashtag-power This hashtag must be short, sweet on the tong, easy on the eyes, soft on the typing fingers and relevant to YOUR SPECIFIC marketing campaign.

The real power is in the #FUFISM factors and how you envisage that you will integrate your selected hashtag with all the pieces of this specific marketing campaign into your overall marketing plan. You will need a well structured marketing campaign that is time specific, and focuses on all your social media platforms with a view of social interaction with your intended target market segments.

You will need to consider the following areas amongst many others which you will recognize as your plan progresses.

content marketing
Social media marketing
search engine marketing
Social media optimisation
Search engine optimsation
off line marketing strategies such as

radio and Television
news papers and magazines
pamphlets and flyers
billboards and posters

target market identification and selection criteria
market research target market preferences
your marketing team structure and management style
Free flow of social media comments and company interactions
the ability of your marketing team to act fast and push the conversations in any specific direction without being overtly intrusive or abusive.
the preparedness of your entire company to become involved and supply the customers needs at large scale in short time spans should your campaign go viral.

So where do you start?

step 1 <=> define your purpose, aims and objectives of your current total marketing plan showing where the company objectives are being fulfilled, and have a written report on these issues.

step 2 <=> define the product, service or other information that you envisage marketing in your new campaign, showing how and where this fits in with your current marketing strategies, and make any necessary adjustments to your marketing strategies and policies that may be needed.

step 3<=> start building your plan for this specific marketing campaign by doing some serious market research and difine the following aspects in seperate reports

product / service / information definitions and associated literature
geographic location based data of targeted areas where your campaign should reach
break down of different target market groups as supplied by your marketing team
staff available with specific social media platform capabilities

face book
twitter
YouTube
google plus
Pinterest
tumbler
all others

blogging team
web design team
SEO consultants or inhouse specialists
marketing team with speciality areas listed : examples listed below

radio and TV
News papers and magazines
flyers, pamphlets and billboards
telephone marketing
cold calling reps
instore / in house branding
product branding / marketing

purpose of campaing
aims and objectives
other areas that come to mind for your specific industry

Now that you have a target market, a product / service decide on a campaign theme

Next brain storm with all involved in doing this preliminary research to determine a single hashtag that would suit your needs and then check for availability. If needed change the hashtag focus to be campaign specific. Remember that this hashtag should be used in general conversation, so choose wisely and do not be silly about the choice of hashtag.

special note : research your chosen hashtag and evaluate what is there before proceeding. You may get some very strange and negative issues if your choose badly.

before using this hashtag anywhere discuss this issue verbally with your main management and get their approval in writing (make sure they do not use this hashtag early, because this indiscretion could cause failure of your campaign) Once you have this approval get your team together and discuss the timeline for your campaign and work out the finer details of how you expect your target market to react and where your call to action statements will be marketed, as well as how these will be handled by your team once your intended target market starts to respond. Have a back up plot in place to handle all those who fall outside of your intended target market who get all caught up in the hype and have a way to move them out of the conversion funnel in a happy way, do not just use a filter and discard their interactions, but rather find a way to apologize for misleading them and show them other related areas of your business where they may have an interest, as they have shown an interest in your campaign, and proof of that is that they are now an in your face problem which needs delicate handling.

Put your landing pages with your final stages of the conversion funnel in place first, once these are functional, work backwards through the conversion funnel and when there are enough steps in place start the offline marketing camapaign and go at it full speed.

Follow up with serious social media posts with links to the landing pages of different stages of your conversion funnel, and ensure that each post within the social media contains at least one iteration of your campaign specific hashtag. Try to use this hashtag in the general conversation within the social media when ever possible.

Remember that this hashtag has by now been marketed in many places, such as news papers, magazines, flyers, pamphlets, Radio and other trans media outlets.

If you have done the FUFISM thing correctly then your administration staff, your sales staff, production staff, your public relations staff and all others will be prepared and waiting, just in-case your campaign goes viral.

once again just to remind you we will expalin the term FUFISM

FUFISM is a marketing philosophy where the social media forms the core functional element of the communication factors involved in online marketing and is used to integrate all the different marketing strategies into one coherent and integrated project where each marketing campaign may be worked on in isolation, but remains connected to the whole through its links to the social media as well as the publisher and the author or authors of the various online components of each campaign

Now you need to remember that each social media platform works in conjunction with all other social media platforms, but is a separate mini campaign within this specific marketing project. Each separate social Media platform needs to be integrated into the main campaign through an integrated approach and as such you will need a campaign specific manager who will manage the integration by running a database that lists each social media post with a reference number so that cross referancing things becomes a simple task, where every post is available to all team members across all platforms.

The reason for this is multi purpose and includes :

so that images may be pinned in pinterest and then referanced in

facebook
twitter
Google Plus
your blog
your web site
other online resources

So that posts in Facebook may be referenced in

twitter
Google plus
your blog
your webiste

so that posts in Google Plus may be referenced in

facebook
twitter
your blog
your web site

You get the point here, all your social media platforms must cross referance all the others in natural ways and expand on the topic as is discussed in those posts, but keep in focus your conversion funnel which must be the primary objective of all your social media conversations.

Each post should try to get the viewer or end user of your information one step closer to the final stage of your conversion funnel. This means that your conversion funnel must be well documented and distributed to all participants so that each person working on your specific hashtag campaign knows who your intended target market is, and who is not to be taken through the conversion process, but gently lead off to other areas of your total marketing campaign where they may fall into other target market zones.

Marketing using the hashtag (#) is quite a simple task, but involves an awful lot of planning and a tremendous amount of team work. You should never just add a hashtag without going through the research motions first, as there can be some quite nasty surprises down the line when others jump on the band wagon and start to use your tag in strange ways which have a negative impact on your brand, your company or your event.

Always take your time and put a well thought through plan of action into place when using a new hashtag, as things happen and your hashtag campaign could by chance just suddenly go viral, and you will need to be prepared for this, especially when there is a negative connotation attached to your hashtag by the public.

hope this helps you with your online marketing and the correct use of the hashtag.

list of pages used during research for this post.

NB these links are in no specific order, and each listed link is a good read in it's own rights.
http://www.realsmo.com/
http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/2013_11_01_archive.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashtag
https://support.twitter.com/articles/49309-using-hashtags-on-twitter#
http://mashable.com/2013/10/08/what-is-hashtag/
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/what-is-buzzing/hashtags-them-properly-111006808.html
https://www.facebook.com/help/587836257914341
http://www.hashtagsa.com/
http://mashable.com/category/hashtags/
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2013/11/11/facebook-pmd-offerpop-launches-hashtag-gallery/
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hashtag
http://machash.com/mac-hash-key/
http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/blog/apple-mac-keyboard-hashtag-where-is-it
http://www.hashtags.org/
http://socialmediatoday.com/mila-araujo/1776991/using-hashtags-social-media-business-how-to-guide
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2305444/The-Role-of-Hashtags-in-Social-Media-and-Search
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/12/small-business-hashtag_n_3991246.html
http://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2013/11/infographic-the-power-of-the-hashtag.html
http://www.brickmarketing.com/define-search-engine-results-page.htm
http://moz.com/blog/mega-serp-a-visual-guide-to-google
http://searchengineland.com/infographic-google-search-results-174190

Pages discussing functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media (FUFISM)